


To Seek, To Find, To Grasp, and Not To Fuckup.

by Devilc



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Character of Color, Chromatic Character, Gen, Laundrylist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to Santiago's world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Seek, To Find, To Grasp, and Not To Fuckup.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for FNL_Laundrylist #14, prompt #10  _Santiago looks at Dillon through the critical eye of an outsider._

As he boards the bus that will take him to Dillon and his new job, Santiago knows the score. Chollos like him generally speaking don't get nice things. So, when that little Jesus Freak chika, Lyla, actually called, he almost dropped the phone he was so surprised. She asked how he was doing, did he find a job, how's school, how are things at home? He didn't quite know how to answer that, partly because he didn't really have that much to say that he thought she'd understand.

_My Uncle's still my Uncle. Gets up every morning and stands on the corner, hoping that somebody needs an extra guy for his landscaping crew, or a guy to lug stuff at a construction site. Works all damn day for about $50  if he's lucky and they're paying good. My cousin's still a banger. (And selling some killer weed.) School is still boring. And we still live in a crappy single wide. I've got two strikes against me. I'm both a Chollo and Trailer Trash, and nobody lets me forget that. My folks are still stuck down in Mexico and I can't go visit them because I can't afford a passport and also I don't want to take the risk that the INS will give me shit and not let me come home, 'cause there's more cases of that than you'd think. And that Bush and his rich gringo homeys suck for coming up with policies that say that because my Uncle is a US citizen  he married a Tejano  it was fine to ship my folks back to Ciudad Juarez and dump me with my next of kin, who is just barely scraping by. Yeah, Papa used to stand on the corner just like my Uncle, but Mama, she had a job as a maid in a hotel and between the two of them, they made enough to rent a good trailer._

In the end, he told her that he hadn't found a job yet and that he was looking (even though not really, because who's going to hire him?) because he didn't know what else to tell her. He wondered if she'd ever worked a day in her life. Like _really_ worked and came home so tired you couldn't even eat, like he used to after 8 hours of washing dishes. She wished him good look and told him to keep trying and told him she'd call again.

So, when she actually called back, and told him that she'd gotten a job interview lined up at her dad's auto dealership, Santiago dived into his clean clothes basket and came up with his newest pair of dockers and a shirt to iron as soon as he hung up the phone. Yeah, he knew he's Lyla's "project" so she can earn Jesus points or something, but right now, he's not too proud to take a handout.

His cousin had smart ass remark after smart ass remark about working for whitey, but Santiago saw him differently after serving a hitch in juvie. Yeah, the pendejo liked to talk a good game, but he sure as hell didn't have a car or any real jewlery (that wasn't stolen), just a few really stoned putas mooching off his ass. His uncle, on the other hand, was happy to give him $5 for the bus and wished him luck.

It took 30 minutes for the bus ride to Dillon, but the bus only stopped outside the Shady Acres Trailer Court once an hour, and Santiago got there a bit early to be sure, and prayed that he wouldn't sweat too badly. He tried a trick he heard one of the screws talking about in juvie  those guys _never_ seemed to sweat. He wore an undershirt and sprayed the inside of his other shirt with Scotch Guard, which mean that his T-shirt got completely soaked through and nasty, but the outershirt stayed dry so he at least looked good during the job interview. And when Buddy offered him "only" $8.50, he almost jumped, because he had busted his ass washing dishes for $5.50, and there was no way this could be as hard as that.

~oo(0)oo~

And now, it's day one on the job, he's got a $25 all month pass for the bus in his pocket, and the land's rolling by and ... well, Dillon's not really that different from where he's come from. It's the same West-Texas town, only with a different name and a little more white, and based on the beat up cars he sees rolling around, he's sure it's got a place or two just like Shady Acres. He steps off, clocks in, and joins all the other Chicanos working behind the scenes at the dealership.

But that's just the way it is. It fucking grinds, but Santiago means it when he says he's going to try not to fuck it up too bad.

But he's also going to suggest (in a week or two of keeping his head down and his mouth shut) that maybe he'd be good detailing the cars or being a gopher. It seems like those are a little less fuckupable than trying to learn the computer system for parts.

Chollos like him don't get nice things that often, and though this isn't perfect, it's still a nice thing, and Santiago's going to fight to keep it.


End file.
